


Balisong

by captain_trashmouth



Series: Becoming [3]
Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Aftermath, Character Study, Coping with trauma, Falling In Love, Learning to be soft, M/M, POV Lio Fotia, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:41:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 894
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23568526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_trashmouth/pseuds/captain_trashmouth
Summary: He is not a sword, and you look nothing like Damocles.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Series: Becoming [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1661308
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	Balisong

**Author's Note:**

> In which the author spends a lot of time thinking about what it means to unlearn trauma.

You used to sit upon thrones built of the bones of lesser men. They called you king and held you aloft like you were something beautiful, something worthy of being seen. The sun shone through you like perfect glass until they named you villain. They named you villain and you became it, for you can only call a name aloud for so long before the thing itself will answer. You have never worn a crown, have never asked for one but your head is wreathed in light. You’ve always been a beacon, a lighthouse built of broken things. Still, you shine. You shine, and your light never goes out, even when the mirrors of the mechanism inside you are broken. You’ve been standing on the edge of the cliffs for so long that you no longer know what it’s like to have your feet on solid ground. You wonder if you’ve ever known safety.

They named you villain, called you monster and still they feared you when you held your arms up, spread wide and open as you demanded that they behold you. Your voice rumbled across oceans in the way the earth shakes before the storm hits. Sometimes, in the quiet hours, in the privacy of your own mind? You miss what it felt like to be a storm. Now, you have no throne. You have no kingdom, no more hands to hold. You gave it all up, but you let go with trembling fingers. You have lived your life with shaking hands, but it’s alright. It was a mantle that was so heavy it made your shoulders sag. It bent your back under its weight in a way that you may never heal from. Your knees got used to buckling beneath it. You used to sit upon thrones built of flames, stranded there without anyone to help you down. 

Then he came. Oh, then he came and extended his hand to you. It was the first time anyone touched you without the intent of leaving a mark. Your fingers shook as his closed around them. He did not pull you, simply guided you in the way you had once guided others. He too is wreathed in light, but it is a different kind. It is a furious thing, self-righteous in its burning. His presence is searing in a way that would turn you to dust if you looked at it for a second too long. He smiles at you, as you stand on that cliff edge together and it is like sunrise. No, you know sunrise, you’ve seen it before. Sunrise is happening in front of you. His smile eclipses that, swallowing up its glow in his own brilliant blaze. He outshines the sun. He outshines the  _ sun _ , so incendiary in his joy that it makes your bones burn with longing. You feel the marrow bubble and sizzle as it turns to liquid. It is like being gutted all over again, and you learn what it is like to yearn.

You think about his hands, now. He spends a lot of time digging. He’s carved out a foundation for himself in the clay beds of your heart, forcing the very earth apart for you. More often than not, his fingers bled. He does not give you the option of leaving. He moves you in the way that no holy spirit ever could as he bleeds his love all over you. The second the drops hit your shirt, he never stops apologizing for the stain he leaves behind. It spills from his mouth like water, his lungs are full of it. You can smell it on his breath, like it has worked its way into his blood. He hangs above you like that, staring down at you as if waiting for you to move. It’s a dare, it’s a challenge, and you’ve never backed down from a challenge in your life. You refuse to start now. Your hands shake as you rise to meet him, the moon to the tide. Which are you? You are unsure. 

You spend your lives curled around each other, twining together like honeysuckle vines along the arbor built from your bodies. You think he has asked you a question, but you hear nothing but the sound of your own blood rushing in your ears. His expectations are heavy, but they do not hold you down. He hangs above you, held only by a thread as his breath lingers in the space between you. You’ve spent so long waiting for everything to come down on your head, but he presses his forehead to your chest as he admits that he has held back. Once again, you think about the thread, that fragile transparent thing keeping you apart. It seems strange that you’d be the one to cut the rope. That dread you feel is not dread, it is anticipation. He is not a sword, and you look nothing like Damocles. He unfolds like a balisong, but nothing about him is a blade. He is warm. Not like fire, but like the embrace of the shallows of a sun-warmed sea. You wonder if he’d like to see it. The sea, you mean. The bronze of his skin laid bare against the sand. He asks you what you are thinking, and for once, you tell him. He blinds you once again.


End file.
